'Different is threatening to most species,' Nikanj answered. 'Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it's true for you.' Nikanj smoothed its head tentacles. 'It's safer for your people to overcome the feeling on an individual basis than as members of a large group. That's why we've handled this the way we have.' It looked around at individuals and pairs of humans, each with an ooloi.
Nikanj focused on Lilith. 'It would have been easier for you to be handled this way-with drugs, with an adult ooloi.'
'Why wasn't I?'
'You were being prepared for me, Lilith. Adults believed you would be best paired with me during my subadult stage. Jdahya believed he could bring you to me without drugs, and he was right.'
Lilith shuddered. 'I wouldn't want to go through anything like that again.'
'You won't. Look at your friend Tate.'
Lilith turned and saw that Tate had extended a hand to Kahguyaht. Gabriel grabbed it and hauled it back, arguing.
Tate said only a few words while Gabriel said many, but after a while, he let her go. Kahguyaht had not moved or spoken. It waited. It let Tate look at it again, perhaps build up her courage again. When she extended her hand again, it seized the hand in a coil of sensory arm in a move that seemed impossibly swift, yet gentle, nonthreatening. The arm moved like a striking cobra, yet there was that strange gentleness. Tate did not even seem startled.
'How can it move that way?' Lilith murmured.
'Kahguyaht was afraid she would not have the courage to finish the gesture,' Nikanj said. 'It was right, I think.'
'I drew back any number of times.'
'Jdahya had to make you do all the work yourself. He couldn't help.'
'What will happen now?' Joseph asked.
'We'll stay with you for several days. When you're used to us, we'll take you to the training floor we've created-the forest.' It focused on Lilith. 'For a little while, you won't have any duties. I could take you and your mate outside for a while, show him more of the ship.'
Lilith looked around the room. There were no more struggles, no manifest terror. People who could not control themselves were unconscious. Others were totally focused on their ooloi and suffering through confused combinations of fear and drug-induced well-being.
'I'm the only human who has any idea what's going on,' she said. 'Some of them might want to talk to me.'
Silence.
'Yeah. What about it, Joe? Want to look around outside?'
He frowned. 'What just didn't get said?'
She sighed. 'The humans here aren't going to want us near them for a while. In fact, you may not want them near you. It's a reaction to the ooloi drugs. So we can stay here and be ignored or we can go outside.'
Nikanj coiled the end of one sensory arm around her wrist, prompting her to consider a third possibility. She said nothing, but the eagerness that suddenly blossomed in her was so intense, it was suspicious.
'Let go!' she said.
It released her, but was now completely focused on her. It had felt her body's leap of response to its wordless suggestion- or to its chemical suggestion.
'Did you do that?' she demanded. 'Did you. . . inject something.'
'Nothing.' It wrapped its free sensory arm around her neck. 'Oh, but I will 'inject something.' We can go out later.' it stood up, bringing them both up with it.
'What?' Joseph said as he was hauled to his feet. 'What's happening?'
No one answered him, but he did not resist being guided into Lilith's bedroom. As Lilith sealed the doorway, he asked again, 'What's going on?'
Nikanj slid its sensory arm from Lilith's neck. 'Wait,' it told her. Then it focused on Joseph, releasing him, but not moving away. 'The second time will be the hardest for you. I left you no choice the first time. You could not have understood what there was to choose. Now you have some small idea. And you have a choice.'
He understood now. 'No!' he said sharply. 'Not again.'
Silence.
'I'd rather have the real thing!'
'With Lilith?'
'Of course.' He looked as though he would say something more, but he glanced at Lilith and fell silent.
'Rather with any human than with me,' Nikanj supplied softly.
Joseph only stared at it.
'And yet I pleased you. I pleased you very much.'
'Illusion!'
'Interpretation. Electrochemical stimulation of certain nerves, certain parts of your brain... What happened was
